Like THE SILENT STAR, IN THE DUST OF THE STARS is another swinging sci-fi epic from East Germany, this time from 1976.

It plays like a sexed-up Star Trek, with decadent orgies and full frontal shower scenes. Location filming in Romania allows this sculpture park to stand in for an alien planet.

With the wild colours and “debauched” parties, there’s a hint of the Glenn Larson Buck Rogers TV show too, though this is more fun and more interesting.

Say what you like about the Evil Empire, their vision of the future was at least as campy as that of Hollywood. SOLARIS might be pretty po-faced, but this stuff is delirious and dizzy. Pour yourself some Tang and kick back.

I’d like to feel optimistic about Robert Rodriguez’ proposed BARBARELLA remake, but I don’t think he has the sensibility for it. Plus, I find all his films a shadow of what they could be, assuming there’s even a worthwhile idea at play, which isn’t the case most of the time. He strikes me as the leading exponent of the “will this do?” school of film-making. I got upset — ridiculously so — at some smokestacks in the background of SIN CITY, where the smoke wasn’t moving, just hanging there like a photograph.

The I thought that a still image of smoke might be quite a nice stylisation. Then I thought that this wasn’t a nice stylisation, just cheapness and laziness, and a nice stylisation would have to feature the smoke more, rather than just flashing it by in the hopes we’d miss it.

Compare this to Roger Vadim and the original BARBARELLA — he showers largesseon the screen, in hopes some will stick. He is rightly more interested in the costumes than in the performances and dialogue. He has an army of writers involved, any one of whom could have done a better job than the team. This is how a ’60s sci-fi epic should be made! What Terry Southern (one of the six credited writers) called “a very special combination of non-talents and anti-talents,” plus of course a lot of actual talents, especially in the design department.

Is Robert Rodriguez going to hire Fenella Fielding to dub one of his major characters? No, I don’t think he is! To hell with him then.

No way should anybody but a European trash-hound be allowed to make BARBARELLA! Jesus Franco is still basically alive — give him a shot at a budget of millions and a green-screened CGI universe!

You know me, I love an imaginary landscape. Don’t let this guy stop you, have a look around…

All this stuff is from an East German-Polish sci-fi movie called THE SILENT STAR. It stars the beautiful Yoko Tani and a bunch of equally beautiful special effects. It’s a shellac-bright vision of the communist future we could all be enjoying right now if only Ronald Reagan hadn’t single-handedly won the Cold War with his bare fists, damn his greasy mane! If not for his senile single-mindedness, THIS COULD BE YOU:

Thanks to filmmaker Steve Sullivan for this one!

The film isn’t so very great, it shares some of the lack of characterisation and narrative drive that a lot of US sci-fi from the 50s suffers from, but these images will sear themselves onto your retinas (which, I dunno, you might or might not enjoy). They’re like the kind of thing Mario Bava was doing with PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, only here they have a bit of a budget.

It’s rare to find a sci-fi film with imagery as lurid and beautiful as cheap paperback art. The only thing missing is a half-naked girl in copper pasties. But this film is way too serious for that.

I would sort of like to visit the Silent Star, though it does look a bit inhospitable and scary. But if I had Yoko to protect me I’d be OK.